Losers and Winners two mayors in duterte’s narco list lose election bid

TWO mayors who were labelled as alleged illegal drugs protectors by President Rodrigo Duterte failed in their respective election bids.

Alex Centena of Calinog town and Mariano Malones of Maasin, Iloilo ran for vice mayor in their respective towns.

Centena, who is on his third term and ran under Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (KBL), only garnered 9,880 votes, a far cry from Renata Casinao’s 15,877 votes.

In Maasin, Malones lost to Itik Albacete by only 818 votes. Albacete garnered 9,680 over Malones’ 8,862 votes.

Malones, who was also on his last term, fielded his daughter, lawyer Sweet Malones, to run for mayor against incumbent Vice Mayor Francis Amboy.

Sweet lost her mayoralty bid with her 8,727 votes compared to Amboy’s 10,061 votes.

But observers believe that the failed bids of Centena and Malones had nothing to do with the narco-list.

Instead, voters were perceived to have experienced “longevity fatigue” since both mayors have been in office for more than a decade already.

But while the two were trounced by their opponents, another mayor on Duterte’s narco list won his re-election.

Mayor Siegfredo Betita was reelected after getting 15,474 votes. He defeated Merlie Tupas with 14,368 votes.

The two other mayoral candidates, Jesus Bartolome and Selfa Pabon, only got 286 and 175 votes, respectively.

Another mayor in the narco-list, Julius Ronald Pacificador of Hamtic, Antique won as vice-mayor over Noel Seguera.

His father, incumbent Vice Mayor Julius Pacificador, trounced his opponent in the mayoralty race.

The elder Pacificador garnered 17,425 votes while Arnold Javier only got 4,076 votes.

In August 2016, Duterte named the four mayors as alleged drug protectors.

All denied the accusations hurled against them.

According to the Philippine Drug Enforcement Unit (PDEA), 25 of the 36 politicians in Duterte’s narco-list won in the May 13 elections.